Iran denies supplying Fajr 5 rockets to Gaza

TEHRAN: A senior Iranian official has denied his country supplied the Fajr 5 missiles which Palestinian militants have been firing at Tel Aviv, Iran's Al-Alam television reported on Saturday.

"We deny having delivered the Fajr 5 to the Palestinian resistance. The aim of such accusations is to portray the resistance as weak whereas it is perfectly capable of producing the arms it needs," said Allaeddine Boroujerdi, head of parliament's foreign affairs committee.

Islamic Jihad claimed its militants fired a Fajr 5 which crashed into the sea off Tel Aviv on Thursday, in the first such attack on the heart of Israel since Saddam Hussin's Iraqi regime fired Scud missiles during the 1991 Gulf war.

Sirens went off in Tel Aviv again on Saturday for a third straight day, sending people scuttling for cover, a day after a rocket crashed into the Mediterranean near the city centre, AFP correspondents said.

The armed wing of the Islamist Hamas movement which rules Gaza and which like Islamic Jihad is supported by Tehran, claimed the latest Fajr 5 fire.

The Fajr 5 rocket has a far greater range than the home-produced Qassam rockets normally used by Palestinian militants in Gaza to target Israel, but neither are very accurate, defence analysts say.

Fajr 5 rockets can be fired from the back of a 6x6 truck to hit targets up to 75 kilometres (46 miles) away. This compares to a range of between four and 13 kilometres for the Qassam rockets.

Recommended

Advertisement

Comments

Your feedback is important to us!

We invite all our readers to share with us their views and comments about this article.

Disclaimer: Comments submitted by third parties on this site are the sole responsibility of the individual(s) whose content is submitted. The Daily Star accepts no responsibility for the content of comment(s), including, without limitation, any error, omission or inaccuracy therein. Please note that your email address will NOT appear on the site.

Alert: If you are facing problems with posting comments, please note that you must verify your email with Disqus prior to posting a comment. follow this link to make sure your account meets the requirements. (http://bit.ly/vDisqus)